[pp.int.general] Free Software or Open Source?

[machado at sociologia.de]

Hi folk,

I think Stallman has appointed a very important question. In Brazil (and 
maybe in all South America) we use mainly the term "free software" 
because of the political implications of FREEDOM. I see "open source" as 
a term of the "business world". I suggest for all "pirates" to use 
always the term "free software" ir order to have a coherent and 
progressive political discourse. We cannot forget that the central point 
is not just the code, but the freedom!

All the best,

Jorge
Brazil



Richard M. Stallman escreveu:
>     The reason why I talked about Ubuntu and codecs in the first place is
>     because, while I see many columns celebrating the choice of the French
>     Parliament to make the switch to GNU/Linux, people often tend to
>     forget that this move was made immediately after the *very same*
>     parliament voted a bunch of laws that could have been directly written
>     by the RIAA and Microsoft (actually they were, but that's another
>     story).
>
> I think it is the practice of saying "open source" (rather than "free
> software" or "logiciel libre") which allows this to happen.
>
> The term "open source" represents a choice to focus on everthing
> _except_ the ethical issue of freedom to share and control the
> software you use.  No wonder that success in convincing someone
> to convert to "open source" does not win their support for freedom.
>
> People justify this choice by arguing that it is easier to convince
> people of the open source ideas.  And it may be true that you can get
> more people to take the "open source" step -- because they have not
> gone very far.
>
> And if the free software movement is hidden behind "open source", they
> will probably never see anything to suggest that they go any further.
>
>
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